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America is on a fast track toward despotism.

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By Bruce Levine - September 2010

...[Is] it just a coincidence that disabling mental illness and psychiatric drug use have been rapidly increasing at the same time?...[The] most scientifically identifiable factor for the increase of severe psychiatric problems is the increase in psychiatric drug use...[L]ong-term psychiatric drug use has caused children and adults with minor emotional problems to have severe and chronic disorders that result in mental illness disabilities.

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By RUSSELL MOKHIBER - August 30, 2010

Move over Animal Farm...Here comes Animal Factory...Making us sick and poisoning the environment...“[W]hen you cram thousands of animals into a single confined space without access to fresh air, outdoor sunlight, pasture, natural animal behaviors – you are asking for problems in the form of diseases that attack people.”

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By Toronto Community Mobilization Network - August 31, 2010

Many people that spent the last year as the Toronto Community Mobilization Network, putting together the infrastructure for the Convergence have been arrested, beaten, and intimidated. Many of our most beloved and central organizers are under house arrest conditions while many others in the city have leaped forward to join the resistance...A new organizing space, the Community Solidarity Network, has just been formed. We see ourselves as the central networking, trust-building and organizing hub for the post-G20 defence happening in different spheres across Toronto.

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Lawless killing is now US policy.

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By Ian Sinclair - August 31, 2010

With the coalition government sharpening its knives in preparation for...the "longest, deepest, sustained period of cuts to public services since World War II," it was only a matter of time before the [Conservatives-Liberal Democrats] turned their attention to the benefits system..."Tougher penalties for fraud" and "more prosecutions" were just two of David Cameron's proposals in his widely reported recent "uncompromising" clampdown on benefit fraud.

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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

NEW ORLEANS, LA - In the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, an order circulated among New Orleans police authorizing officers to shoot looters, according to present and former members of the department.

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More evidence of a pariah Israeli state.

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By Neve Gordon - August 30, 2010

...[P]ersonal attacks are part of a much broader assault on Israeli higher education and its professors. Two recent incidents exemplify the protofascist logic that is being deployed to undermine the pillars of academic freedom in Israel, while also revealing that the assault on Israeli academe is being backed by neoconservative forces in the United States...Numerous forces in Israel are mobilizing in order to press forward an extreme-right political agenda.

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By Sharmeen Khan - August 29, 2010

...I don't mind suggestions of moving forward or reflections, and I appreciate all the attempts to sit down and discuss various debates. But I grow increasingly impatient when a sentence starts with, "You know, what YOU should have done is this"...[As] we reflect, I figure I would respond to my top five favorite post-G20 suggestions:

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With the melting of the polar ice cap and the opening of the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans for the first time in recorded history, the scramble for the Arctic - reported to contain 30 percent of the world's undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of undiscovered oil according to last year's US Geological Society - is underway in earnest. The military value of the navigability of the passage is of an even greater and more pressing significance...

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By Anthony Dimaggio - August 28, 2010

Anyone who has listened to right wing radio...or to Rush Limbaugh 'dittohead' true believers should be familiar with the “free market can solve all America’s problems” rhetoric...I thought this rhetoric was so discredited following the economic collapse that it would be a while before it resurfaced, but that turned out to be a poor assumption. Being a conservative with a megaphone, it turns out, means never having to say you’re sorry or consider alternative evidence and points of view.

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Recover was an illusion. The worst is yet to come.

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25 August 2010 - The Electronic Intifada

This violence meted out by [Palestinian Authority] forces...comes amidst growing dissent within Palestinian political parties against the leadership of PA President Mahmoud Abbas...His decision to attend US-brokered direct talks with Israel -- despite the continued construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land and the ongoing Israeli siege on Gaza, amongst other rights violations -- has been greeted with condemnation.

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By Seth Klein - August 27, 2010

Among the common reactions to the arrival of the MV Sun Sea is the proposition that Canada's alleged lax immigration laws make us a global sucker — a target for many of the world's migrants. This is absurd.

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By Yavar Hameed and Jeffrey Monaghan - August 25, 2010

Canadian military officials have undertaken a comprehensive effort with their Israeli counterparts to “pursue deeper relationships,” to borrow from Israel’s weapons, war training, and counter-insurgency strategies, and to strengthen diplomatic ties, according to documents obtained through access to information (ATI) requests.

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By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - August 27-29, 2010

Encouraged by its success in breaking the law, the executive branch early this year announced that the Obama regime has given itself the right to murder Americans abroad if such Americans are considered a “threat.” “Threat” was not defined and, thus, a death sentence would be issued by a subjective decision of an unaccountable official.

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A campaign declaring solidarity with 33 detained Mapuche hunger strikers has attracted substantial local and international attention to the Mapuche struggle.

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The worst for area residents is yet to come.

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By Bill Templeman - August 26, 2010

At the end of World War II, John Godfrey, the former Director of Britain's Naval Intelligence Division identified two major weaknesses of the Nazi espionage bureaucracy: ‘wishfulness' and ‘yesmanship'. Wishfulness and yesmanship are not real words; they are strictly Godfrey's concoctions. Yet the behaviours behind these terms have changed history. And they are still with us today.

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By YVES ENGLER - August 26, 2010

Market extremists argue that the private sector can do almost everything better than governments...The growth of private security companies...is generally seen as a result of the success of extreme market arguments...Less commented upon is a parallel growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in health-care, education and social services development...that [were] once provided by public institutions.

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By Susan George - August 26, 2010

The European Union (EU) has just forced through a constitution, under the name of the Lisbon Treaty...The European Union is not a democratic entity. We have to vote how they want us to vote or it doesn't count...The treaty also confirmed a further push towards the privatization of public services...We have become subject to the British Conservative Party's vision of Europe which has no social vision, but sees Europe only in market terms.

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By David Correia

"What has been the consequence of labor's embrace of conservative politics and financialization? Pension fund values have collapsed, public sector employees are under assault, benefits have disappeared and layoffs are commonplace."

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By Yossi Sarid - 18.08.10

Zionism has 70 faces, and each of us has the right to chose the face he prefers. If the face of Zionism resembles that of Im Tirtzu and its funders, we should consider a face transplant.

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By Tim Kennelly - August 25, 2010

On March 13, 2008, Canada's Parliament voted to extend the country's military “mission” in Afghanistan to July 2011. The motion by the minority Conservative government was supported by the opposition Liberals. The war makers correctly estimated that fixing an exit date would deflect mounting opposition to the war among the Canadian public and buy time for Canada's continued participation.

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By Pratap Chatterjee - August 25, 2010

...[T]he mission of their military-led “provincial reconstruction team”...appeared to be in direct conflict with those of the “capture/kill” team of special operations forces...whose mandate was to pursue Afghans alleged to be terrorists as well as insurgent leaders. That team was leaving a trail of dead civilian bodies and recrimination in its wake.

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By Autonomous Resistance - August 22, 2010

A 28 page...zine...that provides a brief history of the Black Bloc and the autonomist/anarchist movements from which it arises in W. Europe and N. America.

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By Krystalline Kraus - August 24, 2010

Of the 1,090 people picked up during the G20 Summit, only 303 were charged and told to appear in court on August 23, 2010. Of the 303 charged (by rough estimate; the Attorney General said official stats were forthcoming), 100 people (nearly a third) had their charges dropped or diverted if they agreed to contribute to a charity, do community service or sign a peace bond.

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By Stefan Christoff - August 24, 2010

Under fluorescent lights at the U.S./Canada border, south of Montreal, questions on the war in Iraq and the Palestinian Intifada were fired towards me by officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security..."Can you tell me what you think about the war in Iraq?" questioned the young American man in uniform.

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Colombia is a corrupted fascist narco-state and America's closest South American ally.

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By Krystalline Kraus - August 22, 2010

It’s been two months since the G20 protests in Toronto but that does not mean the effects of the G20 are over. 303 G20 arrestees are scheduled to appear in court on Monday, August 23, 2010.

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By Omar Barghouti - Thursday 12 August 2010

Created and guided by Palestinians, [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] opposes all forms of racism, including anti-semitism, and is anchored in the universal principles of freedom, justice and equal rights that motivated the anti-apartheid and US civil rights struggles.

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By Krystalline Kraus - August 21, 2010

The Canadian government has apologized to First Nations and Inuit communities, but an apology without accountability and action towards change is meaningless.

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Toronto Community Mobilization Network - Friday, August 20, 2010

“We are being targeted for the ideas we advocate as anarchist organizers including decentralization of power, non-hierarchical and non-coercive community structures, active resistance against oppression, and real freedom and equality. The Crown has singled us out specifically as anarchists, but also as allies to Indigenous land defenders.”

- G20 Defendant Leah Henderson

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By Juan Cole - August 18, 2010

It is not so hard to get up a war. You position the war as inevitable. As Right. As Necessary. You re-imagine the poor weak ramshackle enemy as a science fictional superpower, months away from possession of a Neutron Bomb that could Destroy the Universe. It has to be done. We are in danger.

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This article describes a recent study by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) titled, "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009." The study shows that depleted uranium munitions used by US soldiers in the seige on Fallujah in 2004 is likely causing similar, but even worse, sorts of damage to the people of Fallujah as that found in survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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August 19, 2010 - AFP

The US State Department is to more than double the number of security contractors it employs in Iraq to around 7000, filling a gap left by departing troops...[T]he contractors would be deployed to defend five fortified compounds that will be left behind as US combat forces exit Iraq and the US mission switches from a military-led to a civilian-headed operation.

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By Ben Sichel - August 20, 2010

HALIFAX — A self-described “taxpayer watchdog” group with offices across Canada is poised to open an office in Halifax this fall, according to recent media reports. But critics say the organization is little more than a right-wing media mouthpiece...The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) advocates for “lower taxes, less waste, and more accountable government...”

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By CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI - August 20-22, 2010

Omar was born in 1986 and is a Canadian citizen. As a youngster he spent time in both countries with his family and in 1996 the family moved to Jalalabad, Afghanistan where Omar had home schooling. His father and his father’s friends did not like the United States and did not like the fact that the United States had invaded Afghanistan, a dislike that was imparted to the young Omar. Since he was only 15–years old, he was very much influenced by what the adults with whom he associated believed.

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By Dawn Paley - August 18, 2010

...[It] is...clear that oil and gas projects in Colombia operate with the direct support of the scandal-ridden Colombian Army, and often in close cooperation with paramilitary, guerrilla and private security forces whose hands are covered in blood. Any attempt to hide these atrocities behind a Canadian flag will be a failure, as these companies and both governments are already well aware of the high social and environmental costs...

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By MIKE WHITNEY - August 18, 2010

25,000 Jews live in Iran. It's the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel. Iranian Jews are not persecuted or abused by the state...They are free to practice their religion and to vote in elections. They are not stopped and searched at checkpoints, they are not brutalized by an occupying army, and they are not herded into a densely-populated penal colony...where they are deprived of the basic means of survival.

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By Krystalline Kraus - August 20, 2010

Information on new Toronto Police arrests related to the G20 protests and Thursday's bail hearing for Alex Hundert and Leah Henderson.

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August 18, 2010

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) went ahead this week with its draconian drive to impose a new Chief and Council in the Algonquin community of Barriere Lake...In effect, less than 2 percent of the community took part in the imposed election; But as far as INAC is concerned, six to ten was more than enough.

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A shocking story suppressed in America and the western media.

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By John Pilger - August 19, 2010

On 26 July, Wikileaks released thousands of secret US military files on the war in Afghanistan. Cover-ups, a secret assassination unit and the killing of civilians are documented. In file after file, the brutalities echo the colonial past. From Malaya and Vietnam to Bloody Sunday and Basra, little has changed. The difference is that today there is an extraordinary way of knowing how faraway societies are routinely ravaged in our name.

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Potentially hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are at risk.

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By NOII-Vancouver - August 17, 2010

Anti neo-Nazi and anti racist activists are horrified at the public platform and brazen public organizing of well-known white supremacists and neo-Nazis such as Paul Fromm in recent weeks in response to the Tamil asylum seekers landing on BC’s coast.

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One of many major problem plaguing Haiti, pre and post-quake.

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By Harsha Walia - August 14, 2010

Relying on sound-bites about organized crime and terrorism is the best way to close public debate about government actions. Instead of relying on sensationalism, let us ask: On what basis are the Tamil migrants being declared terrorists?...Even if we believe that women and children were forced onto this boat, how do we justify jailing them as a humane response?

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By Tammy Obeidallah - 08/16/2010

By stripping biblical passages out of their proper context and ignoring historical perspective, Christian Zionist leaders have convinced the masses that Jesus Christ will return when all Jews are gathered in Palestine, even if it means the systemic destruction of the Palestinian people.

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By Vancouver Media Co-op - August 16, 2010

The Vancouver Media Co-op has obtained the full records of Guillaume Beaulieu, who was charged with "counseling mischief" during the anti-Olympic protests in Vancouver...[T]he documents point to the political nature of the surveillance on him...by the Vancouver Integrated Security Unit...According to Beaulieu, the ISU is specifically designed as an anti-anarchist group, with a mandate to attack anti-capitalist organizers across Canada.

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By MICHAEL YATES - August 17, 2010

Without a doubt, most of those enmeshed in the (in)justice system are not dangers to society and would not have been in it at all in a society that wasn’t so racist and so shot through with every kind of social and economic inequality...Given that inequality will continue to increase, that good jobs will be ever harder to find, that towns and cities will be strapped for funds into the indefinite future, that social unrest is likely to rise, that racism is not abating, don’t look for the criminal (in)justice system to shrink anytime soon.

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By Roger Annis - August 8, 2010

...[Canada's] "aid" spending [to Haiti] since 2004 has principally gone to prisons and policing...[Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence] Cannon announced in Haiti on May 8 that unnamed international agencies had decided that Canada's principal contribution to the UN mission in Haiti would continue to be in the realm of “security.”

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By No One Is Illegal-Vancouver - August 15th, 2010

Refugees are forced from their homes in emergency situations due to human rights abuses committed during wars, military occupations, or persecution against a minority group. We cannot expect refugees to wait for Canada to select them from overseas...According to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees...there are no penalties on refugees who arrive without pre-authorization and irregularly.

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By JEFF HALPER - August 16, 2010

Nothing stands in the way of completing a system of parallel (though not equal in size and quality) apartheid highways, big ones, going through Palestinian lands, for Israelis; narrow ones for Palestinians. Nothing keeps Israel from expelling Palestinian from their homes so that Jewish settlers can move in – on July 29th nine families living in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, returning home at night from a wedding, found themselves locked out of their homes by settlers and prevented from entering by the police.

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It's a powerful tool when used.

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By No One Is Illegal-Vancouver - August 13th, 2010

No One Is Illegal dropped a large banner which read: “Canada Jails Refugees” above Highway 1 in Vancouver/Burnaby this morning during rush-hour traffic. The banner drop was in response to the ongoing stigmatization and public hysteria around the MV Sun Sea, carrying 490 Tamil asylum seekers to BC.

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Israel is suffocating Gaza.

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By Krystalline Kraus - August 14, 2010

G20 organizer, Kelly Pflug-Back, was released from jail on Thursday August 12, 2010 under an $80,000 recognizance. She was released into the custody of her parents and ordered to live under house arrest at their home in Norwood, Ontario.

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By Conn Hallinan - August 04, 2010

“False positive” is the name given to the Colombian armed forces operation that murdered civilians and then dressed them up in insurgent uniforms in order to demonstrate the success of the army’s counterinsurgency strategy, thus winning more aid from the U.S. According to the human rights organizations...some 2,000 civilians have been murdered under the program.

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By Lauren Russell - July 31, 2010

In protest of what it calls a religion "of the devil," a nondenominational church in Gainesville, Florida, plans to host an "International Burn a Quran Day" on the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks..."We believe that Islam is of the devil, that it's causing billions of people to go to hell, it is a deceptive religion, it is a violent religion and that is proven many, many times..."

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By Krystalline Kraus - August 12, 2010

What happens to the Toronto Police's new toys after the G20 Summit?

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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to whitewash the Gaza Flotilla massacre.

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By Kathleen O'Hara - August 12, 2010

It took many poorly constructed policy bricks to build the power tower the Conservative Party lives in as they rule Canada. But many of the bricks are cracked, and the edifice looks set to tumble.

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By Frances Russell Murdoch - 12 August 2010

...Stephen Harper's Conservatives know that changing the 2011 long form census from compulsory to voluntary makes it useless for public and private Canadian decision-makers. In fact, that's exactly why they're doing it...[Harper] appreciates that authoritative statistics on the relative social and economic well-being of individual Canadians empower the disempowered to demand government programs...to reduce poverty and disparity and promote upward mobility.

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Grandview Park on Commercial Drive has just recently had a construction fence built around it. The Tennis Courts have also been torn up. Defend Grandview had already planned for barbeque to happen in Grandview this Saturday but now we find ourselves in a much more urgent situation and we feel the need to step up the momentum.

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By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO - August 12, 2010

A substantial racist uproar is taking place in conservative America, particularly in right-wing radio and television. Reactionary pundits are drawing increased attention to plans to build an Islamic community center in downtown Manhattan, near Ground Zero....[T]he nuances of the Islamic faith and the mainstream nature of the American Muslim community...have been completely lost in the smug arrogance and incompetence of racists on the right.

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PORDENONE, Italy - A group of 70 no global activists on Monday staged a lightening strike against a field of genetically modified (GM) maize, crushing all the plants and effectively preventing their harvest...Some 70 activists, dressed alike in white overalls, were able to stomp on all the plants before police arrived and dragged them away

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By Natasha Mozgovaya - Haaretz

Israel might attack Iranian nuclear sites within a year, if Iran stays the current course and the U.S. administration doesn't succeed in persuading Israel's leadership that U.S. President Barack Obama is ready to stop Iran by force if necessary...[T]he likelihood of an Israeli strike has crossed the 50 percent mark. And Israel might not even ask for the famous "green light" from the US...

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By No One Is Illegal-Vancouver - August 11th, 2010

Approximately 200-500 Tamils have risked their lives in an extremely long and dangerous journey looking for a place where they can live in safety. We say: LET THEM STAY! No One is Illegal calls on all allies, fighters, trouble makers and social justice activists to organize and fight the racist and anti-immigrant sentiments and policies of the Canadian government and society. Stay tuned for more information on how to support.

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By Martin Chulov - Tuesday 10 August 2010

Al-Qaida is attempting to make a comeback in Iraq by enticing scores of former Sunni allies to rejoin the terrorist group by paying them more than the monthly salary they currently receive from the government...Sheikh Sabah al-Janabi, a leader of the Awakening Council...[said] that 100 out of 1,800 rank-and-file members had not collected their salaries for the last two months: a clear sign...that they are now taking money from their former enemies.

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By Dawn Paley - August 10, 2010

Attached is a brief psycho-social/trauma resource guide that was created based on the info and resources made available from Harmony Counseling and the Peer to Peer Support for Activist folks. Much thanks to them for all of their generous info and support. Please circulate as you like.

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By MIKE WHITNEY - August 10, 2010

It's no fun being on Washington's enemies list. Just ask Hugo Chavez. Last week, the Venezuelan president had to cancel a trip to Cuba after he was told that a coup was underway and his life was in danger. The information came from an anonymous source who had delivered a similar warning prior to the failed coup in 2002.

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By Chris Hayward - August 8, 2010

Before any demonstration or boycott or riot happens on the street, two things have been going on for years: the basic mistreatment and injustice that people are upset about, and the individual targeting of the most vocal advocates to change things...[P]olice action can be best understood as not trying to curb violence in the moment, but as trying to repress protest generally over the long haul.

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By Dave Markland - August 7, 2010

Coverage of Afghanistan's burgeoning anti-war movement is sadly quite scarce, though we have seen in this space some of the more interesting reporting...Lately, however, there have been developments which shed some interesting light on the (mostly) non-violent Afghan anti-war movement.

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By Glenn Greenwald - Friday, Aug 6, 2010

Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights -- or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State -- that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability?

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By Patrik Parkes - The Global Educator

[Mountain Equipment Co-op] has for some years now aimed to be nothing but big. It dominates the market for hiking and camping gear, and now aims to dominate the bicycle business as well. MEC is a master of greenwash...In other words, it’s about as green as Chevron, “Mother Nature’s Gas Station”. MEC sees no contradiction between its purported green, ethical mandate, and shipping products halfway around the world in smoke-belching freighters and employing factories in human rights deficient locations like China and Israel.

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Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and advocate for the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners in Haiti and the U.S.

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By Krystalline Kraus - August 9, 2010

While this article is about [Leah] Henderson's current circumstances, the story isn't really about her. She is keenly aware of the daily actions of the police, backed by the government, against marginalized communities as she has worked in solidarity with Indigenous communities across Ontario for years, from Grassy Narrows to Six Nations. She knows how her incarceration fits into a larger strategy of oppression...

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By Seumas Milne - August 08, 2010

The US isn't withdrawing from Iraq at all – it's rebranding the occupation. Just as George Bush's war on terror was retitled "overseas contingency operations" when Obama became president, US "combat operations" will be re-badged from next month as "stability operations"..."In practical terms, nothing will change".

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In 2009, indigenous peoples throughout the world called for a global mobilisation ‘in defence of mother earth’ on October 12, reclaiming the day that used to be imposed as ‘Columbus Day’. Responding to this call, and the demand for a day of action for ‘system change, not climate change’ issued by the global movements gathered in Copenhagen last year, Climate Justice Action is proposing a day of direct action for climate justice on October 12, 2010.

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By Brian Stewart - Friday, July 23, 2010

In the fields of justice, human rights and foreign aid, it seems that one non-governmental agency after another is being "de-funded" into non-existence or near paralysis by the Harper government...The latest group to feel the axe is the Canadian Council on International Co-operation, an umbrella group that co-ordinates public policy on the foreign aid front and is now in the process of laying off 17 of its 25 employees because the federal government withdrew its $1.8 million in annual funding.

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By Marwan Bishara - August 4th, 2010

I personally have not met anyone who has been shocked by the revelations in the documents published by WikiLeaks, but many are surprised - not so much by the novelty of it all, but rather by the mundane repetition of more of the same deception.

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By CONN HALLINAN - August 6-8, 2010

How involved is the U.S. military in Yemen[?]...According to several news agencies...very involved and likely to be more so in the future...“U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops”...including “the U.S. military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command, whose main mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists.”

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By Jaggi Singh - August 5, 2010

...[W]hile potentially offending pacifists with "Gandhi is dead", you're also offending me (an anarchist who's not white), and potentially lots of other sympathetic non-pacifist radicals and progressives (the vast majority of whom come from communities of colour in this world)...[H]ow would a "Martin Luther King is dead" poster go over, even among radical, non-pacifist blacks? Strategically speaking, that kind of poster is a non-starter...if we're seriously interested in building the anarchist movement, and not revel in self-imposed, mainly white, ghettos.

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By War Resisters Support Campaign - August 5, 2010

A new Operational Bulletin published on Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s website is singling out Iraq War resisters seeking refuge in Canada.

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By Rami Schandall - August 3, 2010

The G20 brought foreign leaders to my city, along with a curse of a $1-billion price tag, a barricade around the city core and an afternoon of unprecedented "riots."

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By Krystalline Kraus - August 6, 2010

Information about G20 activists Ryan Rainville and Kelly Pflug-Back.

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By John Pilger - August 06, 2010

Tony Blair must be prosecuted...Blair conspired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenseless country, which the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the “paramount war crime”. This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people, a figure that exceeds [one]...estimate of deaths in the Rwandan genocide.

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By Justin Saunders - August 5, 2010

In collaboration with Waterloo Regional Police, officers from the Toronto [Police] arrested Indigenous Rights advocate Ryan Rainville on charges of mischief over $5000 and assault police. They appeared at the house in Waterloo where Rainville had been staying since being released from custody on other G20 related charges.

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By Lawrence Scanlan - July 28, 2010

"Since 2006 the Government of Canada has systematically undermined democratic institutions and practices, and has eroded the protection of free speech, and other fundamental human rights. It has deliberately set out to silence the voices of organizations or individuals who raise concerns about government policies or disagree with government positions..."

-- From Voices-Voix on-line petition signed by some 1,500 individuals and more than 150 organizations, including author Margaret Atwood, Amnesty International, Democracy Watch and the Quakers

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By Andrew Fleming - August 4, 2010

A Burnaby man is upset that the activist group No One Is Illegal got away with holding an illegal protest in Central Park last week...David Friedman said the RCMP are guilty of "dereliction of duty" for allowing the July 24 afternoon protest against Conservative Immigration Minister Jason Kenney...["]They're professional protesters, (and) I don't like what they stand for."

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By BILL QUIGLEY - July 26, 2010

The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people...[T]he facts are overwhelming...Below I set out numerous examples of these facts.

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By JOHN GRANT - August 3, 2010

...[A] consensus has been reached that the counterinsurgency campaign is a failure, leaving the default decision that the US military will be relying more exclusively on its Delta Force and Seal assassination teams used to thin out Taliban leaders and intimidate anyone thinking of applying for those leadership openings...Labeled “counter-terrorism,” this approach...amounts to...jettisoning the more costly counter-insurgency “long-war” of development and “nation building” and focusing more on...secret hunter/killer teams...

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By Krystalline Kraus - August 4, 2010

[Note From MW: This is a particularly important update, especially if you live in the Toronto area or were involved in June's anti-G8/G20 protest activities.]

1,090 people have been arrested, thousands beaten, illegally detained, searched, harassed and abused. While over 300 people face criminal prosecutions for their ideological and political actions, and while multiple instances of so-called conspiracy trials and politically motivated targeting continues, we insist, this June 2010, on the streets of Toronto, the people won.

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The Republican scheme to abolish the 14th Amendment looks tame by comparison.

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August 02, 2010 - Znet

Athletes don't live on Planet Jock. They are part of this world and the level of crisis right now in the United States is something that has even breached the citadel of American sports. Recession. War. Immigrant bashing. Oil spills. These are hardly the salad days...[H]istory has returned with a vengeance, a vengeance severe enough to puncture the moated citadel of professional sports.

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Wednesday, August 04, 2010 - Al Jazeera

At least three Lebanese and one Israeli soldier have been killed during an exchange of rocket and gunfire along the border between the two countries...A journalist was also killed, and four more Lebanese soldiers wounded by Israeli shelling on Tuesday..."The Israelis fired four rockets that fell near a Lebanese army position in the village of Adaisseh and the Lebanese army fired back..."

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By Juan Cole - July 30, 2010

I’ve been at conferences where committed Zionists in the audience would afterwards approach me and, with a sort of glazed look in their eyes, give me a little set speech, then abruptly walk away. I initially always think they want to have a discussion. They don’t. They want to engage in some sort of strange ritual speech to exorcise the doubts I raised. They want to tell me off and then escape before I can reply.

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July 30, 2010 - Media Co-op

...[I]t seems that many cities and jurisdictions across Canada utilize cadet programs, screening and hiring youth above 18. The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, Charlottetown, [Ontario Provincial Police], York and Peel Regions of Ontario, London, Thunder Bay, Edmonton and an ever-growing list of police franchises look for young minds, typically in the summer season to patrol the streets and perform a variety of tasks.

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By Ann Jones - August 03, 2010

Throughout Afghanistan, insurgent attacks have gone up 51% since the official adoption of [counterinsurgency] as the strategy du jour. On this eastern front, where the commander had served six years earlier, he now faces a “surge” of intimidation, assassination, suicide attacks, roadside bombs, and fighters with greater technical capability than he has ever seen in Afghanistan...“What we’re fighting here now -- it’s a conventional war.”

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By Ashley Smith - August 02, 2010

...[T]he record of the world powers is a stark contrast to the generosity of their citizens. The U.S., France, Canada and the UN...have done next to nothing to provide alternative shelter to refugees. They have failed to remove the rubble, let alone begin reconstruction, and they reneged on their pledges to deliver aid...Instead, Haiti's earthquake is being used as an excuse to ratchet up a neo-liberal economic plan for the country and to bolster the now 6-year-old UN occupation to repress any resistance.

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By Joshua Kahn Russell - July 29, 2010

There is one unlikely group that has joined in protest against the anti-immigrant law: Environmentalists...I’m proud to be a part of the new generation of eco-activists who see the forests for the trees (and the people). We believe the fate of our planet intimately depends on how we treat our brothers and sisters, and that standing up for Immigrant Rights is a central element of our task.

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US supported fascism in Honduras.

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By Dan Merchant - August 1, 2010

This summer marks seven years since a routine medical exam changed the course of Tim Moorley’s life. For four and a half years, Moorley has been seeking justice against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, for harm they have caused him and countless others. His fight has been hindered by suspicious behaviour in the medical system and a lack of cooperation by the [British Columbia] provincial government.

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By Lawrence Davidson - 01 August 2010

Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans now have to fight continuously for their basic rights as Americans. These members of our communities...are constantly plagued by bigots, hostile special interests, and what appears to be lawless bureaucrats working in agencies ranging from local sheriff's offices to the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to the FBI...Things have gotten so bad that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has issued a traveler's alert...warning Muslim-Americans of the risk of "forced exile" when traveling overseas.

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By Jonathan Cook - August 02, 2010

A rabbi from one of the most violent settlements in the West Bank was questioned on suspicion of incitement last week as Israeli police stepped up their investigation into a book in which he sanctions the killing of non-Jews, including children and babies...Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira is one of the leading ideologues of the extreme wing of the religious settler movement.

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Following our recent call to boycott Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC), a MEC member who supported the campaign and had been a member since the 1980’s informed us that when he canceled his membership as a form of protest he got $200 back on his original $5.00 share. Apparently, the refunded share value is calculated based on the length of membership.

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By Krystalline Kraus - July 30, 2010

The police are backtracking again -- two separate yet connected incidents. Can a non-existent rule trigger real criminal charges?

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SchNEWS - Friday 30th July 2010 | Issue 733

Greece has been left paralysed by strikes as fuel tanker drivers, air traffic controllers and parliamentary workers oppose austerity measures.

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By Rick Wolff - July 31, 2010

Capitalism produces "recovery" for those who need it least while offering austerity for nearly everyone else. Today's business and political leaders tell the people of all advanced industrial countries that there is no alternative to years of government budget austerity...The business and political leaders generated by the last 30 years of neo-liberal capitalism simply assumed that they could impose the costs of their crisis on their countries' people. That assumption is now being contested.

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More incriminating evidence of Israeli lawlessness.

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By Pink Bloc - July 29, 2010

In response to comments made by Ashley Fehr of Canadians Advocating Political Participation in the Georgia Straight that both condemned the black bloc and de-invited anyone wearing masks to the rally, a group of about ten people dressed head to toe in pink, wearing pink face masks with pink flags and a banner that read, 'Solidarity 1073 plus.'

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By Krystalline Kraus - July 28, 2010

First the Toronto police admit their G20 increased police powers never existed. Now they admit they fired rubber bullets into the crowd on Sunday June 27, 2010.

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Corporate spin can't hide the importance of WikiLeaks documents.

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By Yifat Susskind - July 29, 2010

In its bid to maintain its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, the Israeli government has launched a new offensive, this one against its own citizens. A bill that is currently before the Knesset would allow Israelis who support boycotts against Israel to be sued for damages. The bill is part of a government backlash against a small but growing number of Israelis who have taken up the tactic of boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS) to bring about an end to their government’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

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By CONN HALLINAN - July 29, 2010

Winning “hearts and minds” is just a tactic aimed at insuring our paramount interests...Be nice to the locals unless the locals decide that they don’t much like long-term occupation...Then “hearts and minds” turns nasty. U.S. Special Operations Forces carry out as many as five “kill and capture” raids a day in Afghanistan and have assassinated or jailed more than 500 Afghans in the past few months. Thousands of others languish in prisons.

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It's been interesting to watch the discourse around the Afghan War Diary in the Canadian corporate press, and to see what they're talking about, and what they're not...On Sunday, Wikileaks released 91,731 documents about the war in Afghanistan. This is the biggest leak in US history. It'll take some time for analysts to comb through it all, but some reporting trends are already emerging.

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A powerful indictment of all wars.

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By Eva Gollinger - July 28, 2010

President Chavez ordered maximum alert on Venezuela’s border with Colombia after the Uribe administration made grave accusations against Venezuela claiming the Chavez government harbors terrorists and terrorist training camps...Colombia alleged that Venezuela is harboring “terrorists” from the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) and hosting several “terrorist training camps” near the border region that divides the two nations.

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By Justin Saunders - July 27, 2010

One of the three G20 arrestees remaining in custody has been released from a courtroom in North Toronto tonight, after more than a month in prison...Amanda Hiscocks, a community organizer in Guelph, is among 17 people facing conspiracy charges stemming from the police crackdown on G20 dissent.

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By RANDALL AMSTER - Counterpunch

Fostering an environment of racialized violence is the harsh reality of Arizona’s drive toward legislated intolerance. For those who might feel saturated by the incessant news about immigration, or who wonder “what’s the big deal?” about SB 1070 and the like, this is a reminder of the stakes involved. Will there be a climate of escalating fear, hatred, and violence that takes over, or will this be a tipping point toward social justice and human dignity instead?

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By Krystalline Kraus - July 26, 2010

The British government will not lay charges against London police for the death of Ian Tomlinson at the 2009 G20 protests in London.

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Criminal negligence is at fault.

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July 18, 2010 - Znet

The basic conflict can be understood in very conventional terms of people enduring and trying to resist an occupation...I think Israel is behaving like most occupying powers behave...It wasn’t easy to get the French out of Algeria, it wasn’t easy to get the Russians out of Afghanistan, it wasn’t easy to get the Americans out of Vietnam...[T]he fundamental fact is that the Palestinians are not only deprived of their basic human rights but they’re slowly, inexorably, being dispossessed of their homeland by the Israeli juggernaut.

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By Frederico Fuentes - July 27, 2010

When right-wing billionaire Ricardo Martinelli was elected Panama’s president in May 2009, political commentators heralded it as a sign that Latin Americans were becoming disillusioned with the “pink tide” of progressive and leftist governments...But one year later, the Martinelli government is facing a wave of resistance to its anti-labour and anti-union laws. Resistance has grown in the face of deadly repression.

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By Tania Kepler - Sunday, 04 July 2010

Israel has initiated strong legislative measures to combat the growing momentum in support of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli policies. The Land of Israel lobby...recently promulgated the “Prohibition on Instituting a Boycott Bill” which, if passed, will criminalize any call for an economic or academic boycott of Israel, and Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar has said that the government will begin taking action against academics joining the call for boycott.

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By Rick Salutin - July 23, 2010

Since the Second World War, the U.S. economy has been built around what you might call the fear sector: its military-industrial complex, its crime-prison complex and its homeland-terror complex. We're now seeing the first attempt by a Canadian government to follow this model.

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By oshipeya - March 14, 2010

The idea that breaking windows is a revolutionary act or that the State is a window or made up of windows was never presented by participants in the black bloc...or by its supporters. It is not possible to understand or build an analysis or argument around statements that were never made in the first place. The easiest way to not understand something is to take it out of context.

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By Jonathan Cook - July 26, 2010

A decision by Israel’s Supreme Court to double a 15-month jail term for a policeman who shot dead an unarmed Palestinian driver suspected of stealing a car has provoked denunciations from police commanders and government officials...But groups representing Israel’s large Palestinian Arab minority said the outrage at the doubling of the 15-month sentence for Mizrahi reflected the reality that the police force expected impunity when it used violence against Israel’s Palestinian citizens...

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Attacking Iran will inflame the whole Middle East.

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By Hilary Beaumont - July 20, 2010

One in six boys and one in four girls are sexually assaulted before the age of 16 according to Statistics Canada...“Predominantly males who are sexually abused are sexually abused by other males, and statistically people who are committing sexual violence mostly are men...”

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July 12, 2010 - Vancouver Media Co-op

The public denunciation by celebrity leftist activists and "civil libertarians" validates the state's position and weakens the defense arguments of those comrades who face serious jail time. While in state custody, our comrades face beatings, torture, intimidation and extreme fear. As someone who's had a family member and several friends in government cages, I have zero tolerance for those who would endanger the freedom of people working for a better world.

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By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY - July 23-25, 2010

A person who believes that it is “a hell of a hoot” to kill people is seriously demented. The fact that such a person has been appointed to a major US military command is alarming, to put it mildly. But a country gets the military leaders it deserves. It’s a pity that some are psychotic morons.

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By Mel Frykberg - Friday, July 23, 2010

"We would appreciate it were the authorities to remind the various forces involved, that open, unhindered coverage of news events is a widely acknowledged part of the essence of democracy...Generally speaking this would not include smashing the face of a clearly marked photographer working for a known and accredited news organization with a stick, or for that matter aiming a stun grenade at the head of a clearly marked news photographer or summarily arresting cameramen, photographers and/or journalists..."

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By Krystalline Kraus - July 23, 2010

Jeremy Hinzman has won the right to appeal his deportation order, setting the stage for a new immigration review process for all those American soldiers who came to Canada as conscientious objectors.

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SchNEWS - Friday 23rd July 2010 | Issue 732

Ian [Tomlinson's] death is probably the most high profile death at the hands of the police in recent years. However, deaths in custody and after other contacts with the police happen regularly; 30 last year and 65 in 2008. No officer has ever been prosecuted for the death of a civilian caused in the line of duty.

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By Stefan Christoff - July 22, 2010

"Globally speaking we are going to be dealing with cutbacks and attacks at a totally different scale...People mobilizing against the G20 summit in Toronto see a direct connection between the reprehensible gatherings of world leaders and the kicks in the teeth they are receiving from their local government; we are looking at an incredible period of austerity but hopefully we're also looking at an incredible period of resistance."

-- John Clarke, Organizer, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)

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By Edward Herman - April 2010

There were no Tea Party-like campaigns to protest [the] growth in government and attack on constitutional...rights in the Bush years, because the growing and encroaching government was in the right hands. It is only when it gets into the wrong hands and there is the threat that government will serve the undeserving poor...and neglect the corporate community and national "security" that business, the military-industrial complex (MIC), and right-wing protest cadres get agitated about big government.

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By Denis Rancourt - July 21, 2010

...[T]he purpose of targeted material damage to banks and corporations is to inflict financial punishment to force compliance with moral behaviour...It is controlled directly by the individual in the purest form of democratic participation (you don’t need to be unionized), gives measurable immediate results, is psychologically empowering, and is a brave act for the common good with real associated risks. It also generates jobs and provides a visible public critique.

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July 13, 2010

I’m feeling pretty frustrated and concerned at the moment with a tendency I’m seeing more and more in local activism[:]...[A] censorious and...quite vicious attack from a small group of people on anyone and everyone who puts forward a critique of the black bloc. Derisive and offensive, this response has become all too common in recent months and is entirely incompatible with any meaningful resistance or community-building.

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By BRUCE E. LEVINE - July 22, 2010

While U.S. military psychiatrists are prescribing increasing amounts of chill pills, America’s psychologists are teaching soldiers how to think more positively about their tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, and wherever else they are next ordered to kill the bad guys and win the hearts and minds of everyone else...“We’re after creating an indomitable Army.”

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By John Pilger - July 22, 2010

...[A]s Labor prime minister in the 1980s, [Bob] Hawke and his treasurer Paul Keating eliminated the most equitable spread of personal income on earth...And the [United States] loved Hawkie. Victor Marchetti, the CIA strategist who helped draft the treaty that gave America control over its most important spy base in the southern hemisphere [said] “When Hawke came along … he immediately sent signals that he knew how the game was played and who was buttering his bread. He became very co-operative, and even obsequious.”

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By Natalie Gray - July 21, 2010

...I went to Toronto to exercise my civil rights and march in active opposition to the G8 and G20 meetings being held there. On Sunday June 27th, I attended a jail solidarity protest that was peaceful. Without warning a line of riot police started moving towards us, and while running away, I was shot twice with rubber bullets, then arrested and incarcerated for 30 hours. I have been charged with obstruction of a peace officer. I have never been more terrified, more dehumanized or more in pain than I was that day. I wish my story were unique.

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By Toban Black - 07/19/2010

The Alberta tar sands should be viewed as another of various major mining operations that are based out of Canada -- at the expense of many vulnerable communities in Canada, and abroad. While billions upon billions are invested into tearing up Alberta, companies based in Canada are international mining industry leaders, destroying communities and environments in Ecuador, Chile, Papua New Guinea, and beyond. These industrial assaults must not be allowed to continue.

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By Noam Chomsky - July 2010

"[The US is] gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran...US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours...The firepower of US forces has quadrupled since 2003..."

- Dan Plesch, Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, University of London

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By Jonathan Cook - July 21, 2010

What the new one-state debate reveals is that, while some on the right -- and even among the settlers -- are showing that they are now open to the idea of sharing a state with the Palestinians, the left continues to adamantly oppose such an outcome...“I’m not interested in living in a state that isn’t Jewish” (Yossi Beilin, former leader of the 'ultra dovish' Meretz party writing in the Israeli liberal daily Haaretz).

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By Krystalline Kraus - July 20, 2010

It does take a certain amount of courage to offer tactical critique on this issue from within the often nebulous radical/militant left but it does create space for honest and constructive debate.

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by Natasha Mozgovaya

Last week, the board of directors of the Olympia Food Co-op in Washington state decided that no more Israeli products will be sold at its two grocery stores in the city...Olympia is the hometown of International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie who was killed seven years ago in Gaza - a Caterpillar bulldozer ran over her as she tried to prevent demolition of a Palestinian house.

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In 2007, veteran journalist Michael Richardson began writing a series of articles for OpEdNews.com about Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, who are two Black Panther political prisoners known as the Omaha Two. Richardson argues that they were framed for the 1970 murder of a policeman as part of the FBI’s notorious counterintelligence program, dubbed “COINTELPRO.”

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July 20, 2010 - Toronto Media Co-op

The support of rank and file unionists was noticeably absent [during anti-Olympic organizing in Vancouver], and would have contributed greatly to organizational capacity, but the absence of Big Union Bosses and Organized Union Leadership was a breath of fresh air that let community activists loose of the overbearing bureaucracy, fake radical posturing, and eventual bitter sell out that comes with the weight of their organizations.

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By STEWART J. LAWRENCE - July 20, 2010

It's one of the Obama administration's most important and secretive immigration enforcement programs. But despite growing concerns from civil libertarians and immigration activists about the way the program's been designed and implemented, it's caused barely a ripple in Congress or in the establishment media. And the White House continues to stonewall those seeking release of basic details about the program.

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By Krystalline Kraus - July 20, 2010

300 people sitting on the lawn listening to music speaks nothing of the potential Toronto has to mobilize. Actually, the event made it look...like Toronto shrugged off the G20 abuses.

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By Ted Rall - Thursday, July 15, 2010

We are in a deep depression: calculated the same way as it was in the 1930s, the unemployment rate is the same as it was in 1934. Global credit markets have stalled. Investment has ceased...And help isn't coming...No one knows where the recovery will come from for a simple reason: It isn't coming. Not any time soon.

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One of many problems under siege.

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By JONATHAN COOK - Counterpunch

There is one video Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, must be praying never gets posted on YouTube with English subtitles...Its contents...threaten to gravely embarrass not only Netanyahu but also the US administration of Barack Obama...The film was shot...nine years ago, when the government of Ariel Sharon had started re-invading the main cities of the West Bank to crush Palestinian resistance in the early stages of the second intifada.

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By Krystalline Kraus - July 16, 2010

Come check out the photos that David Coombs and I took at the Justice for Our Communities demonstration on June 25, 2010.

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16 July 2010

...[T]his comes from a capitalist news source and seems very much intended at continuing the counter-insurgency model of dealing with the rebellion surrounding the Oscar Grant verdict. Although almost all photos and video of the night show black and brown community members from Oakland attacking the downtown area, the media and law enforcement have tried to blame "outside agitators" and "anarchists" for the rebellion. These accusations aim to downplay the local involvement of hundreds of youth of color who were rightfully enraged by the verdict.

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More evidence of how major media suppress important truths.

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by Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

Polar bears in the Hudson Bay area of Canada are likely to die out in the next three decades, possibly sooner, as global warming melts more Arctic ice and thus reduces their hunting opportunities, according to Canadian biologists.

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Fighting for justice in America is now criminalized.

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By Kevin Edmonds - July 15, 2010

The agrichemical giant is donating tons of “terminator gene” corn and vegetable seeds, sowing future dependence on them for farmers needing replacement seeds, fertilizers and pesticides every year.

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By Steven Fake - Ideas and Action

In the wake of the G8/G20 economic summit protests in Toronto, Canada this past weekend, black bloc demonstrators have once again sparked discussion on the left and hysterics in the corporate media. Closely linked to anarchism, the continued popularity of the black bloc tactic colors the reputation of protesters, particularly anarchists, and merits a response with greater clarity from anarchists.

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By CHASE MADAR - July 16-18, 2010

New York City...is a case study in the failure of get-tough policies to bring order and safety. The city, faced with violence in schools, transferred responsibility for security from the Board of Education to the New York Police Department (NYPD) in 1998. This transformed the School Safety Agents...into police personnel, answerable not to teachers or principals but to the NYPD.

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By Krystalline Kraus - July 15, 2010

If I controlled the media, I would not have wasted prime front page real estate today promoting the police's G20 Most Wanted list like the Toronto Star.

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July 15, 2010 - Vancouver Media Co-op

As part of the anti-G20 Convergence in Toronto, anarchists, anti-authoritarians and anti-capitalists separated from the Labour march on June 26th. After attempts to reach the G20 Security Fence failed numerous times, rioting broke out in the downtown core of the city. In the ensuing weeks, a frenzy of anti anarchist activity has occurred, including public denunciations by the Canadian Labour Congress, its president Ken Georgetti and CUPE-Ontario and its president Fred Hahn.

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By Eva Golinger - Thursday, July 15, 2010

US State Department documents declassified under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) evidence more than $4 million USD in funding to journalists and private media in Venezuela during the last three years. This funding is part of the more than $40 million USD international agencies are investing annually in anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela in an attempt to provoke regime change.

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More than ever our freedoms are threatened.

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By Kristen Hanson - July 9, 2010

The police kept saying to her, "I bet you'll never protest again!" and it is funny because it is just the opposite. She recalls people who were arrested getting ice cream -- they weren't protesters before but they are definitely activists now. The experience of the G20 has only reinforced what she already knew, "the system is broken, and if we don't struggle to fix it, no one will."

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By KRYSTALLINE KRAUS - JULY 13, 2010

Salut Rebellions, as you all are getting ready for Saturday's HUGE Civil Liberties demo in Toronto -- Saturday July 17, 2010 at 1:30 pm at Queen's Park -- know that people in cities as far away as Vancouver and Halifax will be marching with you!

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By GREG DROPKIN - July 13, 2010

Three weeks after the massacre on the Freedom Flotilla...dockworkers in the San Francisco Bay area delayed an Israeli Zim Lines ship for 24 hours, the Swedish Dockworkers Union began a week-long blockade of Israeli ships and containers, dockers in the Port of Cochin, India, refused to handle Israeli cargo, and the Turkish dockworkers union...announced their members would refuse to service any Israeli shipping...Israel faces the prospect of targeted industrial action to implement boycotts. How did it happen, what does it mean, and how can the solidarity movement respond to the new opening?

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By Lesley Wood - July 12, 2010

During last week’s G20 summit, police arrested or detained over a thousand people. With guns drawn, they kicked people awake, they threatened, pepper sprayed, TASERed, tear gassed and beat those in the streets. Although the politicians declared the policing at the summit a success, popular anger at the police is at an all time high. At such moments, it is important to look closely at the tactics and strategy that were used to police dissent, not least because the models that are considered successful, tend to spread.

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...[W]hen oppressed, militarily occupied people resist, let's recognize that it's not our place to tell them what means they should or should not use -- and certainly not when our own nation is contributing so much to their oppression.

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By Peter Bohmer and Robin Hahnel - July 13, 2010

This is economic madness! At best, global fiscal austerity will turn the Great Recession into a “lost decade” -- like the 1980s was for Latin American and the 1990s was for Japan -- but this time for most of the world. At worst, this madness risks sending the global economy spiraling back downward into a second Great Depression.

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By Krystalline Kraus - July 9, 2010

We collectively had our civil liberties taken from us during the G20 Summit when Toronto the Good looked more like Toronto the Police State. In some parts of downtown Toronto, it was as if a foreign army of black clad riot cops had occupied our city; but with an external occupying force at least you know the enemy is not taking its orders from the same government that is supposed to protect you.

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By Murray Dobbin - July 12, 2010

Watching the results of the G8/G20 meetings was like hearing news that a giant comet is heading for earth and we are just waiting for impact. Those meetings of the world's largest and/or growing economies committed governments to massive deficit reduction in spite of the real concern that we are facing the possibility of a so-called "double-dip" recession...Leading the charge on this ideological lunacy was none other than free-market Ayatollah Stephen Harper whose passion for diminishing the role of government is unmatched by any of the other leaders who showed up in Toronto.

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By Jeff Shantz - 07/12/2010

One of the interesting revelations of the G20 fallout is the extent to which many in the social movements or “the Left” are ruled by the morals, values and prejudices of the dominant classes. This has been expressed in the numerous calls for repression of the black bloc by would-be figure heads of the comfortable Left in Canada...For some the rule of law should have held against the black bloc. Others turn to the rule of law as a statist security blanket providing the basis for...their “peaceful protests,” which the black bloc supposedly infringed upon.

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Statement from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) - July 9, 2010

We are now building legal support and political solidarity with those facing serious charges and attempts to detain them for trial. Antiquated and reactionary ‘conspiracy’ charges are being used by the Crown. It should go without saying that our movement will spare no effort to ensure those facing legal persecution are given all possible support, that they are set free and the politically motivated charges laid against them be dropped...This is an attempt to criminalize, silence and intimidate our movements, and we will fight against it.

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July 10, 2010 - Vancouver Sun

The American obsession with security has reached new heights of paranoia, with the Harper government's quiet acquiescence...Bill C-42...would hand over passenger information to U.S. authorities for all non-stop Canadian flights over U.S. territory to a third country...Anyone on a no-fly list...could thus be denied a winter vacation to Cuba, Mexico, the Caribbean or Central or South America.

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Information few in the West know about, but they should.

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July 9, 2010 - Vancouver Media Co-op

In light of the debate surrounding the G20 resistance, I think that it is important to acknowledge and point out police incompetence and violence, and to not exceptionalize the police reaction to their losing control in Toronto.

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By Patrick Bond - July 09, 2010

Acting against our alleged ‘ambush marketing’ and ‘incitement’...the South African Police Service, newly augmented with 40,000 additional cadre for the World Cup, detained several of us here in Durban last weekend...[W]hat we learned was chilling, for they have received orders...that the property rights of the world soccer body (FIFA)...overrule our foundational Constitutional rights.

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America and Israel need conflict to promote their bogus wars against terrorism.

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I witnessed much violence on the streets of Toronto over the weekend of the G20. However, absolutely none of it was committed by my black clad friends. The systemic violence that underlines our incredibly unjust world is perpetrated not by those in black, but by those wielding badges and those adorning suits.

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By Zig Zag - July 8, 2010

Fire and Flames! is a militant report about the G20 protests in Toronto in June 2010, including analysis, tactical tips, background, and more!

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Phavia Kujichagulia, a Griot / Djialli (Oral Historian), musician, writer, poet, dancer who utilizes music, poetry and dance to heal and reveal history -- was a professor of Ethnomusicology and African Civilizations at World College West and Stanford University's Workshop on Political and Social Issues. For more than 16 years, she taught Creative Writing and Performance Art for the California Department of Corrections at Folsom, Soledad, Vacaville, Susanville and San Quentin Prisons.

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By Tim Groves - July 6, 2010

The [Toronto] Police Services Board voted today that they would be setting up an Independent Civilian Review (ICR) to look at policing during the G20 Summit. Many citizens attending the meeting jeered at the Board when they refused to hear public input on the boards decision.

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By Harsha Walia - July 9, 2010

Over the weekend, there were 1090 arrests, of whom 113 were released without charges on the street, 714 were held for breach of the peace and released within 72 hours, and 263 released with pending charges...Around 20 people still remain in custody. While the exact numbers and charges of some of those still being held in detention are unclear at this time, we know that 17 people are facing a variety of trumped up and politically-motivated allegations including conspiracy.

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By Andrew Pinto MD, Malika Sharma MD and Michaela Beder MD - July 5, 2010

Violence against property got coverage but broken bones and eyes filled with pepper spray did not. This violence in Toronto streets echoes what the summit will do to the world's poor.

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By Marusya Bociurkiw - July 9, 2010

I and 70 other queers tried to block Bill Blair, the Chief of Toronto Police, from entering 519 Church, Toronto's queer community centre. He got in and we didn't.

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By Garson Hunter - July 6, 2010

Unconventionally, I wish to state some of the conclusions of my essay at the beginning: the social democratic left is wrong in their belief that the police allowed the Bloc to vandalize property therefore permitting the state to justify its $1 billion in security expenditures...Rather, my conclusion is that the events are as they appear and there is no need for any conspiracy theories about the actions of the police or the state security apparatus.

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By Hillary Bain Lindsay - July 5, 2010

As the tear gas clears over Toronto and the corporate media's frenzy over broken windows subsides, little has changed for First Nations people...Canada still has not signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People; 584 Aboriginal women are still missing and murdered; and many of us still live on unceded First Nations territory—and are exploiting it...On the other hand, Indigenous resistance is growing in Canada; so too are solidarity movements.

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July 07, 2010 - Toronto Star

In one case, a 15-year-old girl's “moderately eccentric interests” in origami and the study of bugs were cited by a psychiatrist at Youthdale Treatment Centre as examples of a possible mental disorder. Another teen's admission of having unprotected sex was taken as evidence of a suicide wish...“Secure treatment is not a placement substitute for child welfare...”

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July 07, 2010 - Toronto Star

After an emotional morning-long debate, city council has voted 36-0 to laud police Chief Bill Blair, the Toronto police services and other forces for their work on the G20 weekend...Councilor [and candidate for Mayor] Rob Ford...said there should be no review of police actions on the G20 weekend and...“our police were too nice”...“Our police force was more than polite, more than accommodating with the protesters...If I was chief, I would have moved in Saturday afternoon and cleaned house...I would have had a zero-tolerance approach...”

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By PETER GELDERLOOS - Counterpunch

To talk about broken windows when the G20 comes to town is to participate in a policing operation that has our doors broken in and guns pointed in our faces, regardless of whether we justify this collaboration with a discourse of nonviolence or one of security. It is to contradict even that most tepid of progressive clichés: people over profit.

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By Krystalline Kraus - July 7, 2010

No one says you have to agree with or condone what other demonstrators choose to do at demonstrations. But calling for a police collaboration campaign or a form of activist vigilantism is very dangerous and divisive to the movement as a whole. Look at it this way, if a marshal turns someone they can only suspect participated in a Black Bloc action over to the police and they are subsequently beaten senseless by the same police, can the marshal just say they were doing their job?

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By Ben Powless - July 5, 2010

Police carried out a dangerous form of collective punishment that tarnished everyone who publicly chose to disagree with Emperor Harper as violent criminals who needed locking up. And with those burning cars, the police would have us believe, went up in smoke the constitution, the bill of rights, international human rights law, and all common sense.

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We write this statement in unwavering defiance to the ongoing attempt to silence us: those who militantly voice their opposition to this ecocidal, colonial- capitalist state, and the corporations that profit from its systemic violence. The state does not represent us, and we do not consent to its rule or its racist, patriarchal 'justice' system, which only serves to uphold the interests of the ruling elite. In regards to the ongoing scapegoating of anarchists in a debacle reminiscent of the McCarthy era: This 'black scare' will not work.

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Israel plans to make all Jerusalem exclusively Jewish.

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July 1, 2010 - Toronto Media Co-op

What transpired later on in the day throughout downtown Toronto will live in infamy in the memory of this city. Riot police...used tear gas for the first time in the city’s history. In fact, it was clear that at one point, the police simply stopped distinguishing between peaceful protesters, rioters, and bystanders. The exact time of this shift in policy cannot be accurately pinpointed, but the change in atmosphere was nonetheless thick in the air.

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By Hilary Beaumont - July 4, 2010

We tell women to cover their drinks, to dress conservatively, and to walk home in groups—never alone at night...Too often the media, the police, our parents and even our friends are quicker to point out flaws in sexual assault survivors’ actions.

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By Jeff Shantz - June 27, 2010

As the state capitalist carnivals of the G8/G20 got underway in cottage country and Toronto widespread public outrage focused on the $1.3 billion security extravagance—the fences, security cameras, weapons, vehicles and mass policing that have become regular features of such elite get-togethers.

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By Rafe Mair - 5 July 2010

I have here...a jar of dots. Now you see me pouring them on the table. Here they are: [BC Premier Gordon] Campbell fibbing about the [Harmonized Sales Tax]. Stock market scams. Bailouts of "investment" companies. The BP oil spill. Riots in Greece. The demonstrations at the G8 and G20 meetings in Toronto...Now let's see if any of these dots can be connected.

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Policies proposed will wreck the economy, not fix it.

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by Billy Briggs

Companies that produce outdoor gear such as waterproof jackets, hiking boots and tents have been accused of causing serious damage to the environment and of ignoring workers' rights in a scathing new report..."It's the ultimate irony of course that while outdoor gear companies depend upon a pristine environment for their profitability, the vast majority show a total disregard for the environmental impact of their businesses..."

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Sa'adat is one of thousands of Israeli political prisoners.

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By Fred Reed - June 22, 2009

Although I am a Southerner...I detested the [jim crow] apartheid practiced in the South. I was there...It was ugly. Jews...didn’t like it either, and in fact led the movement for civil rights...If I didn’t like brutal repression...engaged in by my own people, why am I supposed to like it when engaged in by Israelis? And why do [some] Jews, who didn’t approve of it in the South, support it in Israel?

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By Jeff Shantz - July 3, 2010

In the days following the mass police assaults on organizers, demonstrators, and bystanders during the G8/G20 events...a troubling notion is taking shape...among activist circles as well as some sectors of the general public more broadly. This notion suggests that the police in Toronto acted in a way that was somehow atypical or out of the ordinary...Some public discussion suggests that policing during the G8/G20 reflects a breakdown, a failure to carry out their duties “properly.”

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By Bahija Réghaï - June 23, 2010

Israel...has done quite enough to delegitimize itself -- with support from those who literally love it to death -- via its illegitimate military occupation of Palestinian and Syrian lands, its illegitimate settlements, its illegitimate military Operation Cast Lead against Gaza, its illegitimate siege of civilians in Gaza and its illegitimate extrajudicial assassinations.

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By Sunny Doyle - June 28, 2010

Mainstream media outlets have reported extensively on the demonstrations and their participants in Toronto, but unfortunately, many of them have either shoddy editors or journalists who need to go back to school.

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By DAVID Ker THOMSON - July 2-5, 2010

...[W]e understand today what the bourgeois left, with its stern and pompous little warnings against what it calls violence, will only understand when future generations look back at them in anger. This is why we do not chide any person who, hounded from pillar to post for the crime of wishing to walk in her neighborhood, smashes the icons of our capitalist basilica, our holy of hollies, our glass, our possessions, our things.

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In the early morning of Thursday July 1st, we smashed windows at the Wells Fargo on Stone Road. Wells Fargo puts money into prisons, such as detention centres for migrants. This action follows the arrest of three people, accused of torching a Royal Bank of Canada branch in Ottawa.

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By Denis G. Rancourt - Friday, July 2, 2010

These cops are not just racist...individuals because of their particular personal circumstances. Their language and actions show that they are trained into a military culture where protesters and activists are the enemy and are to be rooted out and intimidated away from societal participation. They aren’t just pigs. They are anti-democracy commandos.

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By Vancouver Media Co-op - July 1, 2010

The July 15-31 issue brings out voices from the hot streets of resistance to the G-20 in Toronto and Vancouver, with special dispatches from VMC contributors who made the trip to Toronto.

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Video-interviewed by Angola 3 News in May, 2010, Ramona Africa is the sole adult survivor of the May 13, 1985 massacre of 11 members of the MOVE organization. Founded in the early 1970s by John Africa, MOVE is a mostly black religious and family-based political organization that, in their words, works "to stop industry from poisoning the air, the water, the soil, and to put an end to the enslavement of life - people, animals, any form of life.”

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By Maya Rolbin-Ghanie - June 30, 2010

Queer rights, migrant rights, women's rights and "citizen's" rights were all blatantly violated throughout the course of the protests...both in and out of the detention centre, much as in countries affected by G20 policies. In detention, accounts of racist remarks, sexual assault and harassment, solitary confinement for queer people, and [denial of]...food, water, warmth, phone calls or legal counsel were all reported by detainees.

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By MATT SHULTZ - July 2-5, 2010

Let me be very clear on this: the point of this exercise was two-fold, first, to traumatize the activists...second, to normalize this kind of thing with the cops. And let me also be clear: Many, even most of the cops seemed totally fine with it. The casual, collaborative, efficient and impersonal sadism of it was really appealing to some of them and everyone in this country wants to ask themselves if Torontanamo is something they'd like to see more of in Canada because make no mistake, it's in the planning stages.

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By Michaël Lessard - June 30, 2010

If you had the impression there was a strange tendency to criminalize dissent during the Toronto G20 Summit, well here is your proof. Among the dangerous items seized by police and displayed at their press conference were a black helmet with a 'mediacoop.ca' sticker on it, a copy of the radical journal Upping The Anti, a stapler and some thin rope.

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A number of people have been asking about ways to support the approximately 900 arrestees in Toronto in the wake of severe police brutality and misconduct during and after the G8/G20 protests. Here’s a few ways you can help:

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By GEORGE CICCARIELLO-MAHER - June 29, 2010

As the trial of former transit cop Johannes Mehserle for the murder of Oscar Grant rushes at breakneck speed toward its conclusion...ominous clouds of injustice begin to crowd the political horizon in anticipation of a verdict, which could come as soon as this week. But while it is this injustice that we should most fear, too many are focusing their fear and the fear of others on the possibility of a repeat of last year’s street rebellions should Mehserle be acquitted or convicted of a lesser charge.

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By Justin Podur - Znet

The spectacle of...finance ministers meeting to talk about passing on the costs of their economic crises to their citizens has produced opposition, and large protests, wherever they [are] held. As the host of the summit, Harper had the choice of where to locate it. The financial capital of the country, Toronto, was a natural choice...Harper opted to hold the meeting in the downtown core, contain it with a multimillion dollar fence, and commence what might have been the largest police mobilization in the country's history.

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By Kirsten Anderberg

In my non-ending saga of being ripped off by "alternative media," I have just stumbled on something that people should know about. I wrote an article for OFF OUR BACKS, a feminist alternative magazine a few years back. They claimed poverty, and I was in poverty, and so I GAVE THEM MY ARTICLE FOR FREE. Now that article just showed up in a published book called The Culture of Beauty...Turns out OFF OUR BACKS SOLD MY ARTICLE TO GALE PUBLISHING!

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On Monday, June 21, the US Fifth Circuit Court ruled to overturn a July 2008 decision that ordered that Albert Woodfox's conviction and life sentence be "reversed and vacated." Albert Woodfox's response to this ruling has just been released, and is featured in full below.

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By Alan Sears - Tuesday, 29 June 2010

On Monday, June 28, a large and boisterous demonstration of about 2500 people that snaked through the streets of Toronto continued the movement to rid this city of the police state regime that took over during the G20 summit. The leaders of the G20 had gone. As expected, their gathering had focused on finding new ways to restore corporate profits by taking it out of the workers and the poor. But the movement against the police state regime and the G8/G20 agenda is continuing.

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By Toronto Street Medics - June 28, 2010

Volunteers who provided first aid at the G20 protests this weekend are calling for an independent investigation into injuries caused by police. “There has been a lot of focus on violence against property, but we are calling attention to violence against people”...“[W]e demand an investigation into violent police action at these protests...People were beaten simply for exercising their right to demonstrate.”

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Even McChrystal suggested the war is unwinnable.

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By Gwalgen Geordie Dent - June 26, 2010

Foreign relations or 'security' has been a long standing topic on the G8 agenda...A host of issues could be the focus of the Summit: the occupation of Western Sahara, the Tamil-Sri Lankan conflict, ongoing war in the Congo, democracy in Saudi Arabia, follow up to the Tsunami aid and [reconstruction]...However the G8 has generally focused on issues which enrage G8 countries: for this meeting, namely Iran and North Korea.

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June 28, 2010 - Toronto Media Co-op

Early Sunday morning, police raided the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) building at the University of Toronto and arrested approximately 70 billeting activists. Students’ unions, campus groups and labor organizations at U of T condemn the G20 Integrated Security Unit (ISU) for this and other raids, and demand that all detained activists and community members be released immediately.

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On the night of Sunday June 27th – Monday June 28th two Bank of Montreal branches were attacked in Toronto, Ontario. We smashed several windows on the bank at the corner of Christie and Dupont. At another, near the corner of Ossington and Dundas, we glued shut the card slot of its ATM before smashing its screen; we then broke several window and walked away.

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Last Friday, three officers were finally indicted by a federal grand jury for the post-Katrina murder of Henry Glover, and the ensuing 5 year cover up.

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June 27, 2010

Since [our] communities have come together, the police have been using intimidation tactics to repress and silence people...Police and intelligence officers went to community organizers' homes and harassed them in the streets. Now they have arrested many of these people...and charged them with conspiracy...These people hold the Harper government to account and they speak out against policies that are making ordinary people poorer, sicker and more desperate. As a result, they have been intimidated, harassed, and imprisoned.

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A review of Denis Lehane’s recent book Unperson, A Life Destroyed quotes how this award winning journalist – “refused to work undercover for the CIA and MI5 who, in revenge, spread [false] rumours that he was insane, an alcoholic and a serial rapist …. He was [later on in London] arrested on a trumped-up charge of terrorism, forbidden to choose any lawyers, tried in his absence and condemned to a psychiatric prison”

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By DAVID Ker THOMSON - Counterpunch

Not all of us who are fighting in the streets here in Toronto are despondent, but a great many of us are...We are experiencing in our neighborhoods what brown people have experienced for centuries around the world at our hands. It has come home to roost...Our children are attacked by troops openly in the streets, openly in so-called “free speech zones”...My ten-year-old was almost fucking killed when he was attacked by police in a free-speech zone. My fourteen-year-old and I were chased for two hours. Does anyone out there care?

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By James Laxer - June 27, 2010

At the G8 and G20 Summits, the Harper government is touting its plan for governments around the world to cut their deficits in half by 2013 and to stabilize their debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016. In a letter sent to G20 leaders on the eve of the summit, Harper declared that "advanced countries must send a clear message that as their stimulus plans expire, they will focus on getter their fiscal houses in order." It's a plan which...would plunge humanity into a global depression.

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